Mumbai's tallest skyscraper designed to "confuse the wind"

Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture has unveiled plans for Imperial Tower, which would become Mumbai's tallest building and surely one of the world's most slender skyscrapers, should it come to be built.

The 116-story, 400-m (1,300-ft) tall residential skyscraper has a distinctive curved shape, which AS+GG says has been designed to "confuse the wind."

The 76,722 sq m (826,000 sq ft) plan makes room for 132 apartments, varying from 195 to 1,115 sq m in size. At the upper end of the scale, Skyscraper News reports that apartments will occupy two floors in their entirety. The loftiest units would command views of the Arabian Sea.

The tower's ability to stand up to the wind is enhanced by sky gardens which have been designed to dampen wind eddying about the tower.

Environmentally friendly touches include rainwater harvesting, gray water recycling and exterior cladding to limit solar heat gain. Perhaps most intriguing is the possibility that the apartments' kitchens and bathrooms could be prefabricated by a local factory.

AS+GG points out that though this is a competition winner, its future is by no means certain. The company specializes in the tall, as you can see from its prior designs for the Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia, and the Wuhan Greenland Center. Kingdom Tower appears to be in the preparatory stages, while construction of the Wuhan Greenland Center is under way, and expected to be finished in 2017.

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